Peer Evaluation Example Essay

The first speech I am going to evaluate is Jane Doe’s speech about why music is good for people and the positives effect of it. Jane started out very well by giving a personal example of using music in her own life which got the audience’s attention. I liked it when she started off with a story and example because it helped me understand what she was trying to say to the class. She then introduced her topic and stated her reasons of why everybody should have an iPod and listen to music. This was a good strategy because it was well organized and simple which helped her keep the audience’s focus. Being too complicated would have caused the class to lose sight of her argument. I enjoyed the outline of her speech because it was simple and straight to the point. Although her outline was well thought out, the way she presented her argument could have used a little work. Jane wrote out a paper to explain her arguments so that she would not miss anything important that she wanted to say. This is a good way to be organized; however, she kept her head down most of the time and read off her paper word-by-word. This affected her voice which made her sound ‘monotone’. Also, an important thing about giving speeches and attracting the audience’s attention is to looking at the audience, making contact with them like you are speaking directly to them. I did not feel as if she had any contact with anyone since she was reading from her paper. I think if she would have had more eye contact, the audience would have been more interested and accepted her arguments. Another thing that affected her speech presentation was that she was very quiet and it was difficult to hear her. It did not seem like she was very passionate about her topic because she stayed at one level with her tone and her dynamics throughout the speech did not seem to change. In other words, she could have used more vocal variety and projection. Overall I think Jane picked a great topic that everybody could relate to and she used great points to explain her stance. However, I think if she would have been more excited about her topic and had contact with the audience, the speech would have been even better.